Bruce R. McConkie:
"In other words, the church of the devil is the world; it is all the carnality and evil to which fallen man is heir; it is every unholy and wicked practice; it is every false religion, every supposed system of salvation which does not actually save and exalt man in the highest heaven of the celestial world. It is every church except the true church, whether parading under a Christian or a pagan banner. As Moroni will say in a later era of Nephite history, and as we shall ascertain in our evaluation of Rev. 18:1-24, it is "secret combinations," oath-bound societies, and the great world force of Godless communism. (Ether 8:14-26)."
"And in these last days it is spread upon all the earth -- the Americas, Europe, Asia, India, the islands of the seas. It is the combined forces of the ungodly. It is Babylon the great which shall fall. "I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few," Nephi says of our day, "because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw." (1 Ne. 14:12)."
"In Rev. 12:1 the woman (a faithful wife living in lawful wedlock) is "the church of God"; here the great whore (an unfaithful woman living the life of a harlot, in lust and 1696 debauchery) is the church of the devil. "Behold there are save two churches only," the angel said to Nephi, "the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth. And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people." (1 Ne. 14:10-11)" (DNTC, pgs 1695-6).
